South Mount Hawkins

We just got back from South Mount Hawkins in the San Gabriels. Mo came along, and I turned the top of the mountain into a gym for a while.

A bulldozer on the summit

There is a bulldozer on the summit. Somebody has been working on the trail recently, and it shows. I have been up here many times before; the trail is in better shape than I remember.

The views are as good as I remember, and they get better the longer you stay.

The Harvest Moon

Then the moon came up gold.

It was the Harvest Moon, the full moon closest to the autumn equinox, and it was full that very day. It rose at 6:37 PM, four minutes before sunset, almost exactly opposite the sun in the east, so for a few minutes the sky had the sun going down on one side and the moon coming up on the other.

Low on the horizon, its light crosses so much air that most of the blue is scattered away, the same reason a sunset is red. The golden one below is from six minutes after it rose, when it was less than a degree above the ridge. Half an hour later it had climbed clear of the haze and gone white over the range.

Training up there

Getting up was only half the point. Once we were on top, I trained: 500 pushups, a couple of interval runs, and whatever else seemed like a good idea at the time.

A mountain can be a better place for this than a gym, because nothing about it is controlled. The ground is uneven, the air is thinner, and you start every set already tired from getting there. That is a lot closer to what a hundred miles in four days asks for, which is San Diego starting Thursday, and to what 60 miles a day on the Pacific Crest Trail will ask for later.

Mo

Mo had a great time, somewhere ahead of me on the trail as usual. My workouts did not bother him. He was happiest anywhere there was water to stand in.

Bring your own water

There is one water source on the way up, about 2 miles before the peak, and that is it.

So bring plenty. Carry what you need for the whole day from the start, and if a dog is coming with you, carry theirs too. They will drink more than you expect.

The route

Straight off my watch: 10.5 miles out and back, 2,001 ft of climbing, and a night on top.

View the route and activity on HQ.training